


the night of the hammer

by queenlua



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29918790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenlua/pseuds/queenlua
Summary: Afterwards, Larsa wondered how long Vayne had been plotting his scheme.(a kiss before betraying)
Relationships: Larsa Ferrinas Solidor & Vayne Carudas Solidor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Final Fantasy Kiss Battle 2021





	the night of the hammer

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [2021 Final Fantasy Kiss Battle](https://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/437147.html), for the prompt "Vayne & anyone, a kiss before betraying."

Afterwards, Larsa wondered how long Vayne had been plotting his scheme.

No—Larsa did not need to wonder. A child _wonders_ , but an adult sees, studies, and understands. And no Solidor could afford to remain a child for long.

So Larsa made himself understand. After his hasty coronation, with the dust around Rabanastre barely settled, Larsa's first act as emperor was to pull every file from Draklor Laboratory, and gather every scrap of paper that Vayne had ever touched. For a week he poured over the files, reading and rereading, while rebuffing his advisors at every turn, who pleaded that the young emperor's attention was urgently needed elsewhere, that his ministers and ambassadors were desperate to speak with him. _Not yet_ , Larsa said each time, _not yet, not yet_. Not until he understood the circumstances that had brought him here. (He could ill afford mistakes, in his new role. He could ill afford childishness.)

Vayne's own papers and effects revealed little—his brother was as careful in his correspondence as he was with everything. But Dr. Cid Bunansa's records were illuminating as they were discursive, knotted snarls of words that wound and wove and rambled every which way. But once unwoven, over the course of that laborious week, those words made it a simple matter to construe the beginnings of their joint plot. Certainly, Vayne's choice was made by the time the Empire had invaded Dalmasca. Likely before then, when Dr. Cid had first written in his lab notes, _excellent meeting with the Solidor boy today!!!_ —the other sons had been dead, by then, and Larsa had never spoken to the man. So it could only be Vayne.

Larsa read all these notes, and he wondered: if Vayne had only _told_ him of his scheme, if his brother had let him in rather than holding him afar—might Larsa have seen good sense in it? might he have been swayed by that unreasonable reason, and thrown his own small might behind the cause? The thought made him shudder. It had been a near thing, after all—Dalmasca's salvation. Had he stood aside in that last battle against Vayne, maybe victory would've come too late, and Rabanastre would've been destroyed, along with any hope of peace.

Larsa hoped he wouldn't have, hoped he would've held fast to all the Solidor name stood for, rather than betraying those ideals for bloodshed, but—no. No wondering, no hoping. He'd stood by mute when Vayne pushed to invade Nabradia, after all, and Dalmasca after. How easily Larsa had swallowed those thin justifications! It was for their own protection, Vayne had said, and he'd believed it. Larsa had hardly ventured outside of Archades, at the time, and he'd been a child; how could he have known otherwise?—but Larsa knew that no Solidor remained a child for long.

And furthermore, Larsa knew it wasn't blind trust that had made him complicit, but a _particular_ trust: his trust in Vayne.

It wasn't that Larsa was sanguine about brotherhood in-and-of-itself. From a young age, Larsa had understood his particular place in the Solidor line: that of the unplanned son. Born a full fifteen years after the others, long after the squabbling over heirs had been settled, he was an inconvenience at best and a threat at worst. His oldest brother spoke to him only with contempt. The next-oldest never spoke to him at all.

But Vayne, Vayne alone, had always spoken to him as an equal, as a brother, as one of his own.

So when their oldest brother had been found guilty of treason, the summer that Larsa had turned nine, and when Father asked that Vayne's sword carry out the sentence—Larsa could not bring himself to feel sorry for his oldest brother at all. He was only sorry that Vayne must bloody his hands with someone so unworthy.

Vayne carried out his duty, as he should. But that night, when the rest of the palace was asleep, he'd come to Larsa's room, alone.

Larsa should have been afraid, but he was not. "What is it?" he'd asked, lighting a bedside lamp, wriggling himself out of the sheets, and sitting himself at the end of the bed.

Vayne sat beside him, then, and pulled him close. He kissed his brow and rested his chin on his head, while Larsa sat mute, struck by the presence of something larger than himself, just outside his understanding.

“How was it, brother?” Larsa asked, a little dumbly, because, what else do you say to a brother who wandered into your room, in the middle of the night, after performing an execution? "How are _you_?" he managed, a little less dumbly.

Vayne’s hug tightened at that, and his fingers dug into Larsa's shoulders. _This is unlike you, brother,_ Larsa had almost said, but he didn't, because he understood that would be a shade too familiar. So he simply sat there, too stricken to move, and too stricken to even hug back.

After a moment, Larsa whispered: "I hope I should never do anything to force your hand against me—"

"You won't," Vayne said, with quiet ferocity. "That won't happen. You are exactly as you should be, Larsa."

Had Vayne already decided on his scheme, by then? Did he even mean what he had said?

Could the answer to both of those questions be _yes_?

It was the only bit of wondering he would allow himself, Larsa decided, as he put the last papers away. Everything afterwards would be knowing. Thus the new emperor mustered himself, to greet his first dignitaries, and make the Solidor name proud as he was able.


End file.
